Mata Sara

Book excerpt: Mata Sara is a novel that fictionalises the ideas of alienation and displacement through the lives of 4 indigenous students who win scholarships to study overseas. These students endeavour through various ways to adapt to new landscapes and environments. In this new place, they find themselves strangers, a minority in the midst of a sea of dimdims who act strangely, whose values, practices etc. are often not understood by the students. At the same time, the dimdims also have crooked eyes because they cannot understand these students. Living in a foreign place, they encounter racism and other problems.